Raye first started building her portfolio as a songwriter when she was around 15 years old and was placed in writing studios to create hooks, melodies and lyrics for other artists. So much has changed for that decade since then. Last year, the singer-songwriter released her long-awaited debut album, My 21st Century Blues, to widespread recognition. And just last month, she made history at the 2024 Brit Awards when she picked up six wins from her seven nominations. But while Raye's rising star shines bright, there are so many experiences from her songwriting career that linger and plague her peers in the art form.
“This is a song-based industry. We're all here at Coachella essentially to watch songs we love, hear the lyrics and melodies we love. And there are some incredibly, stupidly, ridiculously talented people who can't pay their rent who write the songs,” Raye said. Rolling rock backstage at Coachella this weekend. “And it's wrong, and it's wrong. It's just bad if I'm going to be transparent. I can argue about this for a long time. But we need to start having these conversations out loud, and we need artists with big platforms and big songwriters to help take a stand.”
Detailing the exploitation that songwriters often face, Raye recalled a particularly bad industry practice. “Songwriters are manipulated,” he explained. The conversation, which he notes has “happened to me too many times” when dealing with labels, usually goes something like this: “We're going to use the song you wrote. If you don't approve of the 10 percent split right now and you approve of the fact that you're not going to get major royalty points – if you don't sign this deal now – the songs aren't going to come out. We are not going to use it. All your hard work will go to waste.”
The result, he added, is an overly competitive spirit among songwriters who start targeting each other for small percentage splits for songwriting when the bigger issue is when and how they get paid in the first place. “What should be happening is from the top — a payment of respect. Cover food and travel please. If a songwriter is getting ready to write a song for your artists or a pitch session or whatever, food and travel. Come. Isn't that just like human rights?'
The lack of basic funding and respect then boils down to the people who get to sit in those rooms in the first place, Raye explains. “We're now saying if you're rich and you come from wealth and money, you can be a songwriter because you can sustain yourself in life? Can you do it out of passion for love?' asked. “But I say some of the best songwriters we have come from real life, real working class backgrounds. And there are some of the best stories. The music we listen to is a commentary on the human experience. That's where the songs are. And will you treat these people like expendable parts? Bad, manipulative, bad things happen.”
Even as Raye continues to stay in the limelight she's fought her entire career to emerge from, she passionately and relentlessly supports songwriters who are now where she once was — facing the same unsustainable systems that create songs worthy of radio play and prioritizing paying producers rather than paying the people who wrote those songs more than fractions of a dollar years after a hit was created.
“I feel very passionately that this needs to be fixed,” Raye concluded. “There is a very bad problem — but songwriters need to be paid properly and respected. Perfect.”
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